


don't let me go, cuz i'm tired of feeling alone

by lostinsanity



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Breakup, M/M, don't let me go, i'm really sad i'm sorry, what do i tag??/
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 22:12:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinsanity/pseuds/lostinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>harry can feel louis slipping through his fingers, can feel himself  losing his rock, can feel himself losing his anchor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't let me go, cuz i'm tired of feeling alone

Louis comes home late. Drunk. He’s drunk again, as usual. He stumbles in through the door and Harry can hear him clattering about even from upstairs. He’s staring at the wall, eyes blank, mouth drawn. He can hear Louis coming up the stairs, feet heavy on the carpet, and Harry feels his hands shake. They’ve fought every night for nearly a month. And Louis’ been sleeping in the guest room, by himself. And Harry feels like he’s losing bits of himself by the second.

Louis comes into the room, leaning on the doorframe. It’s dark in the room, but Harry’s not sleeping. All he can see is a disheveled silhouette of Louis against the dim light from the living room drifting up the stairs and into the hall.

_Now you were standing there, right in front of me_

_I hold on, it’s getting harder to breathe_

_All of a sudden these lights are blinding me_

_I never noticed how bright they would be_

“Hi,” Louis says, but he doesn’t say it. He slurs it. Harry seems to be finding Louis drunk far, far more often than he used to. He comes home messy, hair all over, face shiny with sweat, clothes mussed and a smile on his face but no gleam in his eyes.

Harry doesn’t say anything.

“You know, a simple greeting would be nice, Harry. I’ve been gone all day and you can’t even welcome me _home_?”

Harry doesn’t say anything. Louis’ getting angry, but Harry doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move, just feels his heart racing in his chest and his palms sweating where he has them clasped together. He feels the dark bruise on his shoulder where the photo frame Louis threw at him slammed into it last night.

_I saw in the corner there is a photograph_

_No doubt in my mind it’s a picture of you_

_It lies there alone, in its bed of broken glass_

Louis huffs, stripping his sweat-sticky slacks off and tossing them onto Harry’s immaculate floor. He walks up to Harry and leans in close to his face. Harry can smell the alcohol on his breath, the alcohol and bar snacks and he can smell the smell of someone else. Louis smells like someone else.

“Say hello to me,” Louis hisses, and Harry stares straight ahead, not meeting his eyes. Harry feels like he’s lost Louis, like he’s lost the one thing most dear to him, and he can feel him slipping away like he can feel the sand slipping through his fingers, like he can feel a butterfly beating its wings inside his palms, and if he were to open them he’d lose it forever. “Say hello to me right now or I’m leaving.”

Harry feels his heart leap into his throat, rising and rising until it’s pressing up on his neck and he feels like he can’t breathe and like he’s going to be sick. “Welcome home,” he whispers, the words fanning across Louis’ unfamiliar face and breaking there. “I... missed you.”

Louis doesn’t even listen. He just pulls away from Harry and turns to his dresser, digging in the drawers for a shirt as he pulls of his and tosses the other on. He stumbles around the room, tripping over his own bare feet, and Harry feels the fondness growing inside of him. But it’s a fondness for a different boy, an eighteen-year-old boy who didn’t know he was getting into. And Harry still loves the way he did when he was sixteen, an anchor digging directly into his heart and chaining him to Louis, and that lets Louis drag Harry behind him like a sorry dog on a short, sorry leash.

Louis turns to leave the room without a second word to Harry, and Harry remembers the days when Louis’d come home late from whatever he was doing, and he’d crawl right into bed with Harry and curl up into his neck and whisper how he loved him into the folds of soft skin there. Not anymore. Harry barely remembers what it feels to kiss him anymore.

_This bed was never made for two_

“Louis?” Harry mumbles quietly, and he doesn’t think Louis even hears him because Louis doesn’t stir, he keeps walking, and he’s halfway down the hall and Harry’s about to crawl back into his bed and cry himself to sleep when he hears it.

It’s soft, it’s barely loud enough to make out, but Harry hears it clear as day. “Harry?” Louis says, and it’s exactly the way he used to say it back when things were okay. Back when things weren’t so stressed and destroyed and they didn’t have to fight fifty figures just to make eye contact, back when Louis’ hands were soft when they ran over Harry’s skin, back when Harry held Louis with the tightest, tightest grip, just to make sure that he didn’t lose him, that he didn’t lose his beloved. But look how well that’s worked.

Harry takes a deep breath, pulls every tiny, tiny shard of courage within him and tries with all his might to piece the jagged puzzle together and make things make sense, to apologize, to declare how much it pains him, how much it tears him apart that Louis isn’t his anymore. That Louis isn’t... here. How much it rips out his heart and makes him bleed from the inside out. But Harry doesn’t say that.

What comes out instead, in a voice as soft as the inside of a rose, is, “I still love you.”

_I’ll keep my eyes wide open_

_I’ll keep my arms wide open_

Louis doesn’t respond right away. And Harry begins to cry, burning, hot tears rolling down his face, because now he knows he’s lost Louis, he’s lost that one, one thing that he held onto so tightly, the one thing he thought he could never misplace. What used to be Louis’ side of the bed is cold, empty, and Harry feels as if he’s curled up in a coffin.

He’s half asleep when Louis comes back in, soundless. He stands right beside Harry by his bed and says nothing. He just stands there, and Harry can feel his presence, a stark heaviness against the thwack of his heart thumping right up against his ribs, and Harry feels like he’s bleeding. He closes his eyes and stops his tears, but he feels like he's bleeding.

_Don’t let me, don’t let me, don’t let me go_

_Cuz I’m tired of feeling alone_

He sits up in bed, staring up at Louis, whose blue eyes shined so bright but now just looked murky, sad. They’ve been put through so much, just so, so much. And neither of them knew how to deal with it. How to fix it. And they’ve let it all go to waste.

“I know you do.” Louis’ words are quiet, and not as slurred as before. It sounds as if he’s thinking. But that’s all he says. He doesn’t say it back, and that’s enough for Harry. It’s enough to be sure that Louis’ gone, that Harry’s screwed up one final time, that the stress and tension between them pulled them apart. Forever. And Harry feels like he’s bleeding, still bleeding, spilling out onto the white sheets and white duvet and pooling out around Louis’ feet, staining the soles and streaming until Harry’s limp and pale against the scarlet that surrounds his head.

_Don’t let me, don’t let me go_

_Cuz I’m tired of feeling alone_

Louis places a hand on Harry’s arm, and it’s cold. “I’m so sorry.”

_I promised one day that I’d bring you back a star_

_I caught one and it burned a hole in my hand_

Harry shrinks away from Louis’ hand and turns, facing the wall. He can see the scenario in the mirror that faces his bed. He can see Louis standing over him like a grim reaper, ready to take him away, and that’s almost what it’s like, because if Louis leaves, he’s taking a piece of Harry with him.

“Why?” Harry says, almost like it’s to himself, so soft and shuddering and shaking. He wants to take his words and set them ablaze, burn the whole flat down and all the memories in it. Including himself. “Why’d we let this go, Louis? Nothing we ever had meant anything to you? Did I not know you as well as I thought I did? Or are you just someone else entirely, Louis?” He sniffles, taking in a shaky breath, trying so, so hard not to lose himself. Not to let himself cry again. Because crying is weakness, and Harry can’t be weak when he’s losing the love of his life.

_Seems like these days I watch you from afar_

_Just trying to make you understand_

He can hear Louis sucking in a thick breath. “I just can’t do it anymore,” comes his voice, _his_ voice, his quiet, soft, slightly high voice, and instead of speaking the familiar words Harry lives for, they speak something that Harry was terrified to hear his entire life. “I can’t fight anymore. I can’t fight with them or with you, I can’t do it.”

Harry feels like he’s talking to a stranger, like someone’s stolen his Louis right out from underneath his nose. It’s a burning, stinging pain, like pouring alcohol in a fresh cut, like being held above a red-hot ember. Louis barely remembers everything, everything they shared. Louis is not Louis. Louis has been sucked out of the veins of his body and maybe placed into a jar somewhere, hidden away until the waters aren’t so rough. Louis’ been replaced by a person Harry doesn’t know, someone he wishes would give him his Louis back, would make his Louis happy again.

_I’ll keep my eyes wide open_

“Why?” Harry says one last time, but there’s no response. They stay there, in loaded silence, and Harry doesn’t let himself cry.

_Don’t let me, don’t let me, don’t let me go_

_Cuz I’m tired of feeling alone_

_Don’t let me, don’t let me go_

Louis sits down at the end of the bed, but he doesn’t touch Harry again. And Harry can sense the tension, can cut the air with a knife because he _knows_ that Louis doesn’t want to do this anymore, that he doesn’t want to hurt Harry but he doesn’t want to _hurt_ anymore, and Harry knows deep in his heart that Louis’ happiness is far, far more valuable than his own, because Louis is everything, Louis has pieces of Harry burned right into his bones and blood and can’t be any less valuable than Harry is if he’s _part of him_.

“Don’t leave,” Harry whispers. He can’t look at Louis, neither his face nor his figure. He can feel the bed dipping where Louis sits, and he imagines that it’s a big black hole, and if he inched any closer to it it would suck him into darkness and never spit him out.

_Don’t let me, don’t let me, don’t let me go_

Louis takes a deep breath, lets it out in a sigh.

_Cuz I’m tired of feeling alone_

“Please.”

_Don’t let me, don’t let me, don’t let me go_

Harry can feel himself breaking, can feel the walls he put up begin to crumble, and all he wants--all he _needs_ \--is Louis to stop, to reconsider, to clamber back into their bed and make it all okay, to tell Harry that it’s all okay, that it’ll all be okay.

_Cuz I’m tired of feeling alone_

Louis doesn’t move. He doesn’t get up and leave or curl up and stay. He doesn’t touch Harry, doesn’t shift, doesn’t _breathe_.

_Don’t let me, don’t let me go_

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” Louis murmurs, the sound so, so loud in the room where the silence is enough to pierce Harry’s eardrums and leave him raw and deaf and blind and sore and nothing, nothing at all. “I loved you, I did. I _do_. But I’m so, so sorry.”

_Cuz I’m tired of sleeping alone_

Harry doesn’t say anything back.

Louis wouldn’t have heard it, anyway.

Because fuck, well. Louis’ gone. He’s left the room and he’s taken Harry’s very soul with him. And Harry has a sickening, bone-crunching feeling that Louis will be empty in the morning.

Or just not there at all.


End file.
